The first Navy fighter rolled to avoid a barrage of weapons fire from the oncoming pirate fighter, an explosion to the left signalled the death of another pirate and coming behind another pirate the Navy fighter made it a second.
His remaining wing mates had scattered and were now engaging their own separate targets, dancing a deadly game of death. The pirates rallied and formed up levelling a deadly row of weapons fire which took out one of the Navy fighters as it was caught from behind, smoke bellowed from the fighter as it began its plunge down and through the never ending clouds to its doom.
Three Navy fighters strafed the pirate frigate unleashed missiles into its flank, fireballs raged from the points of impact and the pirate frigate shuddered heavily from the hits, its turrets tried to answer back to the agile Navy fighters for their part easily avoided the fire. Another load pirate fighters had gone down leaving 10 fighter pilots against the four remaining Navy patrol fighters when the captain of the pirate frigate decided to cut lose early and engage the meddlesome patrol.
The pirate frigate disconnected with shudder from the Sky Ark, whom floated crippled as the pirate frigate picked up speed and swung around to engage the remaining Navy fighters with its full firepower. A Navy fighter went down immediately caught between 3 of the frigate's guns before it had adapted to having to dodge the larger ships firepower, it was beginning to look rough and Zephyr watched nervously as the fight continued. Despite the odds being against them the Navy fighters continued on confidently, almost as if they knew something that no-one else knew.
That something became clear as the rear of the pirate frigate was engulfed in a fireball sending it lurching madly, a second hit caught the pirate frigate on the underside crippling one of her engines and turrets. The pirate frigate struggled to turn to face this new attacker taking a further 3 direct hits which caused numerous damage to its armour plating and managed to puncture the left flank leaving the ship leaning heavily to that side as the helium sacs bleed their gases.
Looking to see what had taken the pirate frigate by total surprise, Zephyr saw the shadow of a Navy frigate from underneath the blinding light of the sun heading full pelt towards them not letting up as she fired yet another round into the stricken pirate vessel. The pirate frigate answered back with its massive main cannon, the Navy frigate shuddered heavily under the force of the hit as it tried to shake it off. The high power explosive round causing heavy damage to even the frigates sturdy armour however not to be out done the Navy frigate intensified its firepower on the pirate frigate absolute pounding it.
Flames, explosion and smoke emanated from the pirate frigate as she slowly began falling from the sky, only the occasional weapons fire came from her as she breathed her last but still the Navy frigate did not lay off firing its cannons at the pirate vessel.
Zephyr and Sarah were both thrown from their feet while the others struggled to keep their footing, the pirate frigate had just gone up in a massive fireball as the Navy frigates cannons had hit their mark and blown up its main cannons ammunition.
Sarah brushed the tangled and oil covered mess that once was her sandy coloured hair and looked at Zephyr who lay atop of her in annoyance. "Get off" she ordered in a thoroughly annoyed voice.
As Zephyr scrammed to his feet, Trent looked Sarah over bemusedly taking in her dishevelled appearance. "What happened to you?" he asked bemusedly.
"I stuck my head in an engine. What does it look like?" She asked sarcastically, grimacing as she ran her figures through her hair. "ugh" was her only thought on that.
"Alright enough chatter people" Captain Wildstar ordered "Jack see if we've got communications and then get that Navy frigate on the line. Tell em, the ships crippled and we've got wounded"
She picked up a pair of binoculars and peered at the Navy frigate which was now slowing down and glided past them, the pirate fighters by now had either been gunned down or had fled for their lives from the superior numbers the Navy now had. The name of the Navy frigate however had been burned off by the shell the pirate frigate had hit it with leaving Captain Wildstar wondering exactly which ship it was, it would help to know the captain before she meet them.
"And find out the name of that ship too" She shouted to Jack as he stuck his head in one of the walls trying to rewire the ship so they had communications
"Aye ma'am" Jack answered fiddling with a bunch of wires
"Sarah! You can stick your head right back in those engines. I want to know if we can get them back up" Again Captain Wildstar ordered.
A displeased look on Sarah's face was all the reply she got as the woman turned and walked down the airships corridors intent on reaching an engine room that wasn't shot to pieces. Zephyr was helping Trent move his sister onto the captains bed, the nearest room to the bridge and Zephyr stayed there making sure she would be alright.
As Trent came back onto the bridge, the captain turned to face him "Well that was quite a bit of excitement for one day" she said wryly "and you said this life was boring?"
Trent laughed out aloud "Compared to my previous life Michelle, this is boring"
Captain Michelle Wildstar decided maturely to stick her tongue out at that comment before turning her attention back to the damage reports the ships computer was spitting out like crazy. She groaned "Is there one thing on my ship that still works?"
Trent looked over from where he was working on the weapon systems and pointed to an item on the list. "Well it looks like the showers still working" he pointed out helpfully
Captain Wildstar just glared at him
"What?!" He protested "Imagine what Sarah would be like if she can't get a shower soon"
The captain thought that carefully before a grin cracked her face and she laughed "She'd probably end up fixing that before any of the main systems"
Trent laughed "That she would"
They worked in companionable silence for a while after that, working on restoring the airships abilities and systems or at least as best as they could do with bullet holes in most things important, inconsiderate pirates shooting everything up.
"Hey boss!" Cried out Jack holding headphones to his ears. "I got the HMS Valiant on the line, a Captain Darkwall."
"Tell them our situation" Captain Wildstar ordered
Jack waved his hand "Yeah, yeah" he said absentmindedly, he paused listening to something before speaking again. "They're rescuing the survivors from the Sky Ark and the Flying Otter before getting around to us. They'll put our ship in tow with the others"
Captain Wildstar nodded before turning to go check on Sarah and the airships engines, she found Sarah with half her body inside one of the engines cursing and the English girl was swearing in Russian good enough to put Katrina to shame.
"Hows it going?" asked the Captain, Sarah jumped and banged her head against the top of the engine block before resuming her cursing three-fold.
After she had finished bastardising the heritage of most of the world in three separate languages did she push herself out of the engine, if possible Sarah looked even more of mess with oil and grease up to her elbows. Sarah sighed and ran her hands through her hair before wiping them on her overalls then she paused.
"I should have done that the other way shouldn't I?" She thought out aloud before sighing annoyed again before facing her captain.
"Well?" Captain Wildstar asked again
"Well we might get engines one and three working again" Sarah stated confidently "but the other three engines are done for, they've been shot to pieces and I might need parts from them to rebuild the other two"
The Captain looked Sarah over before nodding "Okay, fix the engines up and then hit the showers." She said watching Sarah smile gratefully while trying to avoid getting more oil on her "Do you want me to send Jack to help you?"
"Yeah, thanks Captain" Sarah nodded "I could use his help"
"I'll send him down" The Captain said as she turned back to the bridge.
On the bridge again Jack was helping Trent with the weapon systems, not that there was much to be done because the turrets were all but destroyed.
"Jack! Go help Sarah with the engines" The captain ordered as she strode onto the bridge.
Jack looked up at the captain. "Sure thing boss" He said twirling a soldiering iron between his fingers before getting up and heading to the engines. "Oh, the Valiant is coming around to dock now boss"
Trent kicked the console "Lousy piece of crap" He grumbled.
"Sarah says she can get about 30 % our engine power back" Wildstar said to Trent as she came up to him "and maybe we can buy parts of the Navy frigate"
Trent looked doubtful "They usually sell crap" he said truthfully
The captain laughed "Where doesn't sell crap?"
"True enough" admitted Trent "Talking about frigates they're docking righr about……. Now"
As on perfect timing the Ringman shook as the HMS Valiant latched her docking claws onto the Ringman, a series of clangs signalled the claws locking on.
"Hmmm… lets greet our guests" Said Captain Wildstar before striding to the docking hatches and gangways with Trent at her side.
AUTHORS NOTE: All right! I admit i forgot about this story for a bit even after promising to have updates more regular. My only excuse is that i recently had my exams and now i am getting back into the track of things.